


Last, loveliest smile

by Em_Jaye



Series: The Long Way Around [22]
Category: Captain America - All Media Types, The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types, Thor (Movies)
Genre: Domestic Fluff, F/M, Fluff, Seasonal
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-05
Updated: 2019-11-05
Packaged: 2021-01-23 09:44:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,295
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21318130
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Em_Jaye/pseuds/Em_Jaye
Summary: Woody Allen once said, 'If you want to make God laugh, tell him about your plans." With that in mind, Darcy had to wonder if there was anyone who could make God laugh quite like Steve Rogers.September/October 1973: Autumn
Relationships: Darcy Lewis/Steve Rogers
Series: The Long Way Around [22]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1402126
Comments: 82
Kudos: 257





	Last, loveliest smile

**Author's Note:**

> This is just...like...PURE fluff.
> 
> Ye be warned.

_Labor Day _

Darcy was sorting through the small pile of mail on the kitchen table when she felt Steve’s hands on her hips a moment before his arms circled her waist and pulled her back against him. She smiled and relaxed, letting her head fall onto his shoulder.

“You’re home early,” he noted before he dropped a kiss to her temple.

She nodded. “Yeah—um,” she interrupted herself with a guilty giggle. “June cut me first.”

From the corner of her eye, she watched Steve raise a curious eyebrow. “Slow night?”

“No.” A lock of hair fell from her bun and into her face as she shook her head. “Not really.” She turned in his arms and leaned back against the table. Her cheeks tinged pink. “Tangie kind of…sussed out that you and I are…” she bit her lip, still unsure of the kind of label to affix to the shift in their relationship, “together.”

Steve leaned in to kiss her. “Uh oh,” he mused. “Guess there’s no going back now.”

She giggled again and shook her head. “Definitely not,” she said before relaying how Tangie had literally shrieked with joy when she’d dragged the source of Darcy’s good mood from her. And how she’d practically danced into the dining room where June was working on payroll at the back booth to tell her that Darcy needed to go home early. “And I wasn’t planning on keeping it a secret,” she added, letting her hands run up his arms to rest on his shoulders. “But just so you’re aware, Tangie told Junie and between the two of them, the entire diner staff is going to know about us by tomorrow morning at the latest.”

Steve’s smile broadened. “Are you telling me that June sent you home early to be with me?”

“That is exactly what I’m saying,” she said before he leaned in and kissed her again.

“I knew I liked her…”

Darcy laughed and pushed him away gently before she felt herself melt too much into his kiss. “Okay, but I’m not subjecting you to post-diner Darcy. I at _least _have to shower—I smell like butter.”

Steve laughed as she turned around out of habit and wordlessly requested his help with the top three clasps of her uniform. He popped them easily and slipped his arms around her again. “You know,” he pressed his lips to her neck, just below her ear. “Butter was a rarity when I was growing up,” Darcy snorted and tilted her head to the side to give him better access. “A delicacy, if you will.” He kissed her again and she felt her knees weaken.

“Steve… “ she whined lightly, biting back a smile. “I’m so gross, let me shower.”

He let her go and accepted the kiss she dropped on his lips when she turned back around. “Did you eat?” She shook her head before she reached up to pull her hair down from its bun. Steve smiled and brushed a few rogue curls from her face. “Okay, you go shower,” he said. “I’ll make you dinner.”

Darcy raised her eyebrows. “Oh really?”

“Yeah,” he grinned. “I’ll make my famous call to the Chinese place.”

She giggled again and rose up on her toes to plant another kiss on his lips. “Nobody calls for takeout like you, baby.”

“And don’t you forget it.”

It was much later that a shadow zipped across the ceiling as a bird swooped across the streetlight and Darcy studied the ceiling, nowhere near tired enough to fall asleep. “I think I like my room better,” she said as Steve propped his head up on one arm to lay on his side.

“Yeah?” he asked, sounding like he wasn’t quite so awake. Lazily, his other hand drifted over to her chest; his fingertips trailing lightly over her collarbones. “Why is that?”

“Don’t you think it’s more….” She felt her nose wrinkle unintentionally. “Homey?”

“I think your bed is smaller,” Steve reminded as he leaned over to press a kiss to the corner of her mouth.

She smiled and turned her head to meet his lips with hers for a real kiss. “Then we can bring _this _bed to _that _room and have the best of both worlds.”

“So, we’ll sleep in your room and I’ll still keep all my stuff in this room?” he asked with a half-smile.

Darcy wet her lips. “I could get a dresser,” she reasoned. “And then you’d have space to put your clothes in my closet and we could use this room for something else.”

Steve let his fingers run over the top of her bare shoulder and down the length of her arm. “Sounds like I’m going to be moving a lot of furniture next weekend.”

She bit her lip in response. “You don’t _have_ to move anything,” she clarified. “We don’t have to change anything about our living situation if you don’t want to.”

He bent and kissed her again. “I didn’t say I didn’t want to.”

It was a strange thing, to have come home from Tahoe in a different relationship than when they’d left. To try to figure out if there was that much difference between living together and _living together_. Darcy wasn’t sure what the rules were for who was supposed to sleep where when you’d only technically been a couple for a week, despite having spent every day together for the last three years.

Not that Darcy had ever put too much stock in the rules. She knew she preferred this sweet intimacy into which they’d slipped—easy and soft and teasing and like they’d always been like this. And she knew that neither of them seemed to want to sleep without the other, regardless if it was in her bed or his.

Her eyes fell to the clock on the bedside table behind Steve’s shoulder. She winced. “We can talk about it later,” she decided. “It’s almost midnight and you have school in the morning.”

“The alarm is set,” he assured her. “I’ll be fine.” He rolled to his back and let her snuggle against him; his arms wrapped around her as she shifted to tuck herself under her chin. “Hey,” he said quietly, just as her eyes began to feel heavy.

“Hmm?”

“What are you doing Friday night?”

Darcy blinked and mentally ran through her calendar. “Nothing,” she said after a moment. “Why?”

“I, uh,” she heard a smile in his voice. “I was wondering if you’d wanna go out.”

Darcy bit back a grin and pushed herself up on her arm to look down at him. “Are you asking me on a date?”

In the moonlight, she could see the tops of his cheeks turn pink. “Yes?”

She giggled and dropped her head to kiss him. Her hair fell over her shoulder like a curtain of messy curls. “I’d love to go out with you,” she assured him, the words quiet, against his lips, before she kissed him again. She cuddled back down and rested her head on his chest. “We did this kind of backwards,” she realized. “I don’t think you’re supposed to tell someone you love them before you’ve even had a first date.”

“I don’t know if you know this,” Steve said, bringing her hand up to his lips to press a kiss to the tips of her fingers. “But I’m not really a rule-follower.”

She snorted. “You? Former international fugitive?”

“Don’t forget professional menace to anti-homeless infrastructure.”

She kissed his chest. “I would never forget that.” They were quiet for a moment before she smiled. “If we have sex on the first date, does that make me easy?”

“I think it makes us both easy,” he said mildly, his voice falling deeper into his chest as she laughed again. “But don’t worry,” he went on, tightening his arms around her. “A gentleman never reveals his conquests--no matter how easy they are.”

Darcy hummed in amusement. “A fugitive and a gentleman,” she mused. “This is like something out of a romance novel.”

“Just like it,” he said, sounding just sleepy enough that Darcy could tell his eyes were already closed.

She only had to wait a few minutes before she could sneak out of bed to pack him a lunch for the first day of school.

_September 19, 1973_

She’d barely been awake when he’d left that morning. With her civil service exam looming on Saturday, she’d been up studying until the wee hours and had crawled into bed only a few hours before his alarm had gone off.

He’d sat on the edge of the bed and kissed her goodbye, smelling like soap and aftershave and making her want to pull him back under the covers with her to sleep for a few more hours.

Wednesday wasn’t her usual day off, but she’d given Alice her shift when she’d asked. Darcy needed the time to study, Alice wanted the hours, it was a nice easy trade. She hadn’t realized the date when she’d agreed. Or when she’d stayed up too late the night before. Or when Steve had kissed her and left for the day.

It was lucky then, she decided, that she’d realized her error with enough time to make it right.

The secretaries at Skyline High didn’t even bat an eye before telling her where the art classroom was. She wandered toward the back hall, alternating between marveling at the lack of security and being impressed by the charcoal sketches that had been hung along the walls. The art room had two sliding barn doors that made her wonder what it had been before its conversion. One was open, letting the smell of paint thinner and ceramics glaze drift out into the hallway. Someone had turned a radio on and Darcy could hear Bob Dylan mingled with the sound of teenaged voices.

To her surprise, the classroom was nearly empty when she popped her head in. There were twenty drawing tables and stools on one side of the room, the other held folded easels, shelves of supplies and art history books.

A small group of kids occupied the drawing tables. Four girls and two boys, all looking to be about sixteen. Their heads shot up as soon as one noticed Darcy. “Are you looking for Mr. Grant?” one of the girls asked. She had frizzy red curls, freckles, and hands that were black with charcoal.

“Yeah, “ Darcy nodded. “They told me he was back here?”

“It’s his prep period,” another girl chimed in. “He knows we're in here,” she added quickly.

Darcy smiled. “I wasn’t going to narc anyone out,” she assured them. “Don’t worry.”

“He said it’s cool if we want to come in here and work on stuff if we have a free,” a third girl continued, though Darcy was pretty sure she hadn’t questioned their right to be there.

The redhead studied her with a narrowed eye for a moment before she smiled. “Oh, I know you,” she said with a kind of know-it-all attitude that Darcy would have found obnoxious if it wasn’t quite so familiar. “You’re the girl in the photo.”

She raised her eyebrows. “What photo?”

A few of them pointed to the front of the room, beneath the chalkboard full of Steve’s neat handwriting. She debated taking the bait for all of three seconds before her curiosity won out and she crossed the few feet to pluck the only picture frame from the corner of his desk. She smiled when she recognized a photo that Linda had taken at baseball game two summers ago when the A’s had played—and lost to—the Dodgers. It was of the two of them, pink from the sun and smiling with Steve’s arm thrown easily around her shoulders. She set it down where she’d found it and turned back to the students. “So this prep period,” she asked. “Where does that happen?”

“Can you tell us something first?” It was the second girl who’d spoken asking this time.

“Depends on what it is.”

“The downstairs teachers’ room is across the hall,” one the boys piped up, not bothering to hide his rolling eyes. “They just want to know if you’re Mr. Grant’s girlfriend.”

The four girls groaned in unison. “Shut _up, _Dale,” the redhead gave him a shove before she turned her attention back to Darcy. “But are you? He won’t tell us.”

Darcy was finding it hard to keep a straight face. “Uh, well,” she bit her lip and tried to keep her giggles in check. “If he hasn’t told you then I probably shouldn’t tell you either,” she said diplomatically. Four sets of shoulders slumped again. “But I _will _tell you something if you feel like helping me out.” When they looked up together like a pack of meerkats, Darcy continued. “Do you guys have class in here soon?”

“Next period,” one of the girls said before she looked at her watch. “Twenty minutes or so?”

She grinned. “Perfect.”

Steve’s head was down when she opened the unlocked door marked _Downstairs Teachers Lounge_ across the hall from the art room. He was bent over, glancing between a notebook and a grade book and didn’t look up until she closed the door behind her.

“What are you doing here?” he asked with a smile, closing the books in front of him.

Darcy crossed the otherwise empty room and offered a wide-eyed look. “Oh, I’m sorry, Mr. Grant. Am I breaking the rules?”

“Stop it,” he warned lightly around a laugh as he got to his feet.

“What are you going to do?” she asked around a guilty giggle as he met her halfway and put his arms around her. “Punish me?” she let her nails graze his ribs and watched him squirm. “Send me to detention?”

Steve was pleasantly pink when she looked up. He shook his head affectionately. “How did you even know where to find me?”

“I went to your room,” she beamed. “And your little squad of groupies told me you were over here.”

“They're not groupies…” he muttered.

Darcy snorted. “No, you’re right. They just wanted to make extra sure I knew how cool you were that you let them hang out in your room when you’re not there.”

He rolled his eyes. “Did you tell them the truth? That I’m not even a little bit cool?”

She scoffed. “Now why would I tell them that and spoil the image of groovy Mr. Grant that they’ve built up in their hormone-addled brains?”

Steve placed a sweet, gentle kiss on her lips before he smiled. “Did you come here just to tease me and put some seriously distracting thoughts in my head? Or was there another reason?”

Her smile broadened as she stepped out of his embrace and reached for her purse. Carefully she extracted the Tupperware container she’d brought from home and opened the lid to reveal the chocolate cupcake she’d baked that morning. With its vanilla frosting and sprinkles, it looked perfectly cheerful as she plucked it from its container and held it out to Steve. He shook his head with another smile as he accepted it and Darcy leaned back against the table. “Did you think I forgot?”

“_I _forgot,” he admitted. “So I really didn’t expect you to be keeping track of pretend birthdays too.”

“How else am I going to cash in on this two-days-of-cake perk?” she joked before she motioned for him to eat it. “You don’t have that long before you have to go back to class,” she reminded. “Eat up.” He finished it in only a few bites and swiped at the corners of his mouth as Darcy beamed with pride. “There are eight more of those waiting for you at home.”

Steve raised his eyebrows. “You made nine cupcakes?”

Darcy blushed. “I made twelve cupcakes,” she admitted. “But I ate three of them for brunch before I regained my self-control. The rest are for you.”

His lips still tasted like vanilla frosting when he kissed her. “You didn’t have to go through all this trouble,” he said softly before he grinned. “You could've just put a bow on yourself—that’s present enough for me.”

“Oh, that’s still happening,” she assured him, stretching up to kiss him again. “But I wanted to give you a treat before I….” she paused and tilted her head to one side. “Y’know. _Gave you a treat._”

A shrill bell rang out, interrupting the kiss Steve was about to return and sending Darcy rocketing back to memories of high school. She grinned and picked up her purse. “First bell?”

He nodded and gathered up his grading and notes before he reached for the door to let her go first. “Careful,” he warned. “Don’t get caught in a stampede.”

He stole one last kiss before he opened the door and they stepped into the chaos of the halls between classes. Kids talking, laughing, yelling at or for one another. Lockers slamming, sneakers squeaking. Darcy flattened herself against the wall until the worst of it had passed and most of the students had found their way to a classroom. She forced herself not to reach for his hand and settled for wiggling her fingers at him as she backed up the way she’d come. “Have a good day, Mr. Grant,” she called with just enough of a devilish grin that Steve had to smile back even as he mouthed the words, _Stop it_.

He closed his classroom door behind him just as the second bell rang out, In the empty hallway, Darcy stopped and waited until she heard the sound of twenty of Steve’s students singing happy birthday to him. Just like she’d asked.

Without being able to see how red Steve’s face was from the attention without going into the classroom herself, Darcy had to be content with her imagination. It was enough to keep the smile on her face as she made her way out of the building.

Good little groupies.

_October _

“Elephant ears or funnel cake?” Darcy asked, reading the signs of the vendors at the harvest festival. The sun was just starting to set on a crisp afternoon at Apple Hill. They’d driven north on Tina’s recommendation when Darcy had expressed a desire to do something that really felt like fall. The third Saturday in October had been spent picking apples, taking photos, tasting ciders and wines, and was winding down with a walk beneath colorful carnival lights while Darcy debated what kind of deep-fried indulgence to purchase.

Steve shifted the bag that held the apples they’d picked and two bottles of wine to be able to hold her hand in his. “I don’t care,” he said with a shrug. “But I don’t think I’ve had a funnel cake in about eighty-five years so…”

Darcy laughed. “Funnel cake it is,” she declared, tugging on their entwined fingers toward the cart up ahead.

The closest benches were all filled, so with a plate of deep-fried sweet dough and powdered sugar in hand, she followed Steve to the nearest building and sat down on the concrete steps that led to the door. It was a few minutes of untangling and crunching through the first few bites of her funnel cake that Darcy felt Steve’s eyes on her. She swiped absently at her mouth. “Do I have sugar all over my face?”

Steve reached over to run his thumb across her cheek, wiping at a streak of sugar she hadn’t caught. “Yeah,” he laughed and tore off a piece of dough for himself. “Everything okay?”

Darcy looked up again, surprised. “Everything’s great,” she said before she smiled. “I had such a nice day,” she admitted. “I’m so glad we did this.”

“Me too.” He watched her take another bite before he went on. “You were just looking a little pensive is all.”

She shook her head. “No, I’m fine,” she said quickly. “I’m just…” she coughed around a throat full of powdered sugar. “I guess I’ve got like, some background worry going on.”

“Background worry?”

“About Monday.”

“Ah.”

Monday. Her first day as an employee at Oakland Medical Center. Having passed their exams, background checks, and physicals with flying colors, Darcy and Tangie had both been promoted from patient advocate volunteers to full-time caseworkers.

She was excited. She’d fallen in love with the work she got to do as an advocate, and she knew that being a caseworker was going to be a hundred times more fulfilling than waiting tables. But there was a nagging twist at the back of her mind that kept cropping up when she’d think for too long.

The air bit just enough to send a shiver down her back. Steve’s hand fell between her shoulders. “You cold?”

She nodded and scooched herself closer, happy when he took the hint and dropped his arm around her. His red flannel shirt was soft and warm against her temple when she leaned her head against him, and he smelled like the leaves someone had been burning nearby all day. “This is better,” she decided out loud.

“So, what are you worried about?”

“Just my usual…” she shook her head. “Y’know. All my usual anxieties that stir up whenever I’m on the verge of being handed any kind of responsibility.”

She didn’t have to be looking at Steve to know he’d wrinkled his brow in confusion. “And are those anxieties…” he paused, considering his words, “founded in any kind of reality I haven’t noticed yet?”

Darcy cuddled closer. “Not really,” she admitted. “Just...I don't know. I've never had a real job before and my brain decided to scrounge up some leftovers from a lifetime of being the family screw-up.”

“I’m having a really hard time believing that you were ever considered the family screw-up.” His hand drifted over her shoulder, warming her up more as he rubbed her arm through her light sweater. 

“Okay, no,” she conceded. “Not technically. But, y’know…” she shifted and pulled another piece of dough from the plate. “It was kind of hard growing up in my house with so much…” she frowned, “accomplishment all over the place.” Steve was quiet, waiting for her to continue. “I mean, my dad’s a lawyer—which is nothing to sneeze at—and everyone else? My grandparents were doctors, Mom’s a doctor, my sister’s a doctor, her _husband’s _a doctor…” she shook her head again. “And then there’s me. The hot mess, least-accomplished Lewis. Born without the over-achiever gene.”

Steve took his arm from her shoulders and turned so he could look at her. As expected, a set of familiar lines had drawn his face into a look of confusion. “Least accomplished?” he repeated skeptically. “You’re telling me your whole family has _also_ helped save an entire small town from an alien attack and successfully traveled through time?” He let out a low whistle and shook his head. “Damn, you really can’t catch a break.”

She laughed softly. “I know it’s irrational. But I’ve pretty much never felt like I had any idea of what I was doing—and it doesn’t help that I grew up in a house where _everyone _knew what they were doing and doing it really well _all the time._” Background worry had surged to front-of-mind worry and she clapped a hand over her eyes. “Ugh. Ignore me. I just want to eat funnel cake and be here in the moment with you.”

But Steve moved the paper plate away as she reached for another piece. “We can go back to doing that in a second,” he promised when she pouted her lips. “I just want to make sure you know that you have _nothing _to worry about with this job, right?” He ducked his head to make sure she was looking at him. “You’re going to be great—and more than that, you’re going to be doing what I can’t imagine anyone you’re comparing yourself to can do better. Professionally.”

She frowned. “And…what is that, exactly?”

Steve leaned in and kissed her forehead. “Taking care of people. Making sure they have what they need to get through something terrifying. Probably making them laugh and realize what they’re going through isn’t the end of the world.” He smiled softly. “And no offense to the rest of your family, but there’s no way any of them could do that better than you.”

She stretched her neck to press her lips to his for a lingering kiss. She was smiling when she pulled away. “You have a point,” she said, licking the taste of powdered sugar from her lips. “I _am _the only time-traveler. That I know of, at least.”

He tapped his forehead to hers gently. “You’re a lot more than that, Darcy.”

The twisting anxiety she’d been feeling since she’d accepted her new job two weeks ago faded into something that felt more like butterflies. “If I admit that I’m a badass and going to absolutely own this new job,” she raised her eyebrows. “Can I have the funnel cake back?”

Steve laughed. “Yes.”

“Fine,” she sighed. “I’m awesome. And I’m going to kill it on Monday.”

Immediately, Steve placed the plate back on his knee. “As promised.”

She tore into another piece as he dropped his arm around her again. They watched the people meandering with plates of sugary treats and boxes of popcorn, kids chasing each other around food carts and midway games, couples walking close together as the sun sank behind the hills and the air grew colder. “Steve?” Darcy asked once she’d eaten her fill of funnel cake and licked all the sugar from her fingers.

“Hmm?”

“I love you.”

Steve kissed the top of her head. “I love you, too.”

**Author's Note:**

> Hope you liked this fluffy little diversion! 
> 
> \--
> 
> Come play with me on tumblr: @idontgettechnology and join me at ishipitpod.com for weekly podcast on fandom and fanfic by yours truly. 
> 
> *kisses*


End file.
